Records of the Office of the Governor of Kansas : George Washington Glick administration (1883-1885)

Dates

1883-1885

Quantity

8 ft. (10 boxes + 3 oversize folders)

Abstract

Ninth governor of the State of Kansas, 1st Democratic governor, 1883-1885; from Atchison.

Correspondence and other items received from the administration of George Washington Glick, governor of the State of Kansas from 8 Jan. 1883 to 12 Jan. 1885. Includes general letters, official response letters from & letters concerning State agencies, applications & endorsements relating to State positions, and subject files; some proclamations are also included. State departments file includes judgeships, the Kansas State Penitentiary (now the Lansing Correctional Facility), and other agencies. The Applications and endorsements file includes correspondence relating to college & university and other State positions. Subject files include county organizational papers; and letters relating to claims, counties, crime & criminals, lands, livestock, military affairs, relief, Prohibition, and other topics. Additional records of Governor Glick are in separate series common to several governors including Pardon and parole files: Women’s Industrial Farm, 1863-1919; Pardons, 1865-1883; Appointments registers, 1865-1885; Letter press books, 1865-1904; a Record of death sentences, 1872-1906; Death sentence warrants, 1872-1908; Requisitions on governor from governors of other States for persons accused of crimes, 1873-1960; County organization censuses, ca. 1873-ca. 1886; Applications for extradition requisitions: Subseries I and II, 1874-1953; Prisoners in Kansas State Penitentiary, ca. 1875-ca. 1897; Citizenship pardons, 1876-1960 ; a Record of pardons, 1877-1888; Executive messages and proclamations, 1877-1921; Extraditions, 1877-1960; and Citizenship pardon orders, 1878-1884.

Identification

Record group 252.

Consult the Detailed Description of the Records section, below, for locations of individual series and folders.

Language

Text is in English.

Notes

This finding aid describes materials held by the Kansas State Historical Society. Materials may be used in the Library in the society’s Center for Historical Research during regular research hours. Support for telephone, mail, and on - line reference and research is limited.

In a continuing effort to improve the completeness and accuracy of finding aids, revisions are made as more or new information becomes available. Consequently finding aids in paper format and on the society’s web site may differ slightly.

History and Biography

History of the Office of the Governor

The Wyandotte Constitution of 1859 established the office of the governor of the State of Kansas. Some of the more important duties, functions, and responsibilities of the governor are to see that the laws are faithfully executed, to require written explanations from other executive officers - at that time the lieutenant governor, secretary of State, auditor, treasurer, attorney general, and superintendent of public instruction - upon any subject relating to their respective duties, convene the Legislature by proclamation on extraordinary occasions, communicate in writing such information as the governor may possess in reference to the condition of the State at the commencement of every legislative session, recommend such measures as he may deem expedient, and commission officers of the State.

No formal qualifications for the governor have been legislated, aside from the provision that no member of Congress or officer of the State or United States can serve. The governor is elected by a plurality, not necessarily a majority of votes cast. The governor takes office the second Monday in January following election. He was authorized to hire a private secretary, pardon attorney, and other staff as appropriations permitted.

At the beginning of George Glick’s term, the governor had the power to appoint Militia officers; members of part - time boards of directors, trustees, or regents of the State Penitentiary (now Lansing Correctional Facility), schools of higher education, the State insane asylum (now Osawatomie State Hospital), and schools for deaf and blind students; a Board of Visitors for the State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University); the Bureau of Immigration; the Commission for Care of Destitute Orphans and Children of State Soldiers; the State librarian; the superintendent of insurance; a private secretary, executive clerk, and other staff for his own office; and a members of number of minor commissions. He was also an ex officio member of the State Board of Canvassers, boards of directors of the Agricultural College and Normal School, the Bureau of Immigration, the Board of Treasury Examiners, and other committees.

During Glick’s tenure, the governor was given the power to appoint the State mine inspector in 1883, three livestock sanitary commissioners in 1884, and the State veterinarian in the same year.

Biography of George Washington Glick

George Washington Glick, ninth governor, and the first Democratic governor of the State of Kansas, was born July 4, 1827, at Greencastle, Ohio. He died on April 13, 1911, and is buried at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison, Kansas. George Glick was the son of Isaac Glick, a farmer - stockman, and Mary Vickers Sanders Glick. He and his one sister and three brothers were raised on his father’s farm near Fremont, Ohio. His great - grandfather emigrated from Germany in the midst of the American Revolution, and his father was involved in local politics and community affairs. From that experience George learned the value of hard work and public service from his boyhood days. His grandfather, George Glick, fought in the War of 1812 as did his mother’s father, Captain George Sanders. Glick obtained his early education at common schools and his higher education was accomplished at Central College in Ohio. At age 21 he entered the Law offices of Buckland and Hayes (later Rutherford Hayes became the nineteenth president of the United States) and succeeded to the bar two years later along with many of his Cincinnati Law School contemporaries. He began his own law practice in Fremont, and Sandusky City, Ohio, and was known as an intelligent and hard working lawyer. In 1857 he married Elizabeth Ryder of Massillon, Ohio. Elizabeth was indeed a prominent lady in waiting who descended from a very distinguished colonial ancestry and who was also among the first settlers of Concord, Massachusetts. George’s marriage to Elizabeth Ryder certainly added status, grace and success to his political career, having shared the circle of influence from respected and prominent aristocrats. In 1858, he was nominated for Congress by the Democratic Sandusky district but declined the honor. Instead, he decided to run for the Ohio State Senate but was doomed to defeat early on in the endeavor. Later that same year, the Supreme Court presented Glick the commission of judge advocate general with the rank of colonel in the 2 nd Regiment, 17 th Division. In 1859, he moved to Atchison, Kansas, which became his permanent home. There he formed a new law partnership with Alfred P. Otis. The law firm was largely a success and continued until 1873 when an infection of the throat forced Glick to discontinue the business of public counsel.

At the onset of the Civil War, his calling was service in the Union Army, and he was mustered in the 2 nd Kansas Militia as a corporal; he fought gallantly in the Battle of the Blue where he was wounded.

George Glick’s forward political journey involved serving as a delegate in several Democratic National Conventions. He was elected a member of the Kansas House of Representatives from 1864 to 1869 and later served as a Kansas State Senator from 1873 to 1879. He was also speaker pro tempore and was appointed treasurer of the Managers of the Continental Exposition by Governor George Osborn in 1876.

On character George Glick was well liked and respected; he was known as a “just and expert” statesman, but after 15 years of public service he was seriously afflicted with a throat infection that nearly ended his ability to speak. He did however continue to practice law as an attorney for private railroads and also managed his farm and served as a charter member and first vice-president of the Kansas State Historical Society at Topeka.

Glick was finally elected governor of the State of Kansas succeeding governor John St. John in 1882 and was sworn into office as the ninth governor of the State of Kansas on January 8, 1883. As a stern Democratic governor his intent was to steer the “ship of state” in a new liberal direction and was credited for creating the railroad commission, a “good roads” law, and an intense cleanup and reassessment of the State’s tax laws. He also established a Livestock Sanitary Commission with an elected State veterinarian to police food industrial affairs after a serious “hoof and mouth” outbreak that ravaged the cattle industry throughout the Midwest. His son, Frederick H. Glick, served as his private secretary, and both he and the governor resided at the Copeland Hotel in Topeka. George Glick also pushed the Legislature to promote women’s suffrage and a national soldiers’ home at Leavenworth. He had a passion for Indian nations and was saddened by their perpetual despair, so he insisted that they be given the opportunity to prosper with a proper education. Glick persuaded the Legislature to enact State law that would authorize and fund the Haskell Institute at Lawrence to train and educate native Indians in land - trade and other vocational skills.

The Glick administration was rightly marked by a strong economy and credited for fairness and foresight in the process of governing. In 1883, the Executive Council of Kansas appointed the first Board of Railroad Commissioners that included three members. During the Glick administration the Legislature defined new and adjusted congressional districts based on the 1880s census.

By 1884 Kansas had grown extremely prosperous and generous, and farmers throughout the State came to the rescue and sent sixty-one carloads of golden corn to Ohio’s stricken flood victims. The State also shipped a train load of corn to Virginia to aid in building a Confederate soldiers home. Governor Glick thought the stern prohibition law enacted by governor St. John had limited purpose, was a little extreme, and was unwise in the pursuit of fairness and its level of enforceability. The prohibition law was extremely difficult to enforce and the self - employed bootleggers were the only clear winners in this game. He strongly recommended its abolishment but only stalemate ensued on the issue. The Democratic Party nominated Glick for a second term of office in 1884; unfortunately for the sitting administration, the Republican candidate; John A. Martin was elected but only by a slight margin. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland appointed George Glick as pension agent for Topeka, Kansas, and while in that position he served for two terms and received and disbursed over $85,000.00. He also served several terms as president of the State Board of Agriculture. In 1892, the Kansas delegation in the Democratic National Convention at Chicago presented his name to the convention as the candidate for vice president, but the members did not elect him. Glick still owned the large Shannon Hill Farm estate just outside of Atchison where he raised white purebred shorthorn cattle; a unique coloration not preferred by many shorthorn breeders. Glick’s life in retirement was almost as busy as being governor, as he traveled constantly between his home in Atchison and his hobby orange grove in Florida. While in Florida in 1910 he severely fell and sustained a broken hip. After a year of bed rest and pain suffering, he died in April 1911; he was 83 years old. Each state is entitled to place in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., statues of two of its most prominent citizens recognized in literature, art, war or civil life. In the regular session of the 1913 Legislature of Kansas, an adopted resolution for the appropriation of a statue of George Washington Glick to be placed in Statuary Hall in the United States Capital Building passed. The statue was designed by Charles H. Niehaus and accepted by Congress as a gift from Kansas. In 2003 the State of Kansas replaced the Glick statue with one of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Scope and Contents of the Records

Governor Glick’s records consist of one series of Correspondence Received, 1883 - 1885 (no. 03415), divided into four subseries. The Correspondence Received consists primarily of letters received by Governor Glick; however there may also be proclamations and a few petitions, reports, copies of letters sent, and other types of documents. The Glick records are organized into four subseries: (1) General File, (2) State Departments, (3) Applications and Endorsements, and (4) Subject Files. Some proclamations may have also been interfiled with other items received relating to the subjects of the proclamations. Documents that may have been addressed to Governor George Glick but dated or pertaining to the time period after his term expired in 1885 may be filed with the records of his successor, John A. Martin.

The General File, 1883 - 1885 (subseries 1), consists of nine folders containing letters received that were filed in alphabetical order by author. Contained therein are letters relating to positions, recommendations, and vacancies; Governor Glick’s addresses; State contracts; the extension of State jurisdiction to former Indian reservations; litigation, judiciary and judicial procedure; legislation; requests for information, publications, or action; politics; services and goods offered for sale; taxation; transportation; public policy and land issues; interstate co-operation; and correspondence from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Letters may have been filed here because there was not an appropriate place for them in the State Departments (subseries 2) or Subject Files (subseries 3).

Letters from or relating to State offices are in subseries 2, the State Departments File. Some of the letters relate to the Kansas Academy of Science, personnel, vacancies, resignations and appointments, but most pertain to the operation of individual State agencies. The letters request the Governor to take specific actions, ask his approval, send him information, ask him questions, tell of events, provide legal opinions, forward other letters and petitions, confirm or acknowledge gubernatorial actions, and request the Governor’s presence. Topics include the Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) (Manhattan); the attorney general; the School for the Blind (Kansas City); the Deaf and Dumb School (now the Kansas School for the Deaf) (Olathe); the Executive; State fiscal agents; the fish commissioner; the Kansas State Historical Society; insane asylums (now State hospitals); the Legislature; the Normal School (now Emporia State University); penitentiary wardens; boards of directors; other State offices; judgeships; audits; the State treasury; Indian raid claims; federal taxation; State payments; prisoners; the Kansas State Penitentiary (now the Lansing Correctional Facility); bonds; the Board of Statehouse Commissioners; detectives; the State agent, Samuel J. Crawford; the architect superintendent responsible for Statehouse construction; the Office of the State Auditor; the livestock commissioner; the State mine inspector; and fraud. Of these, there is more material on judgeships and the Kansas State Penitentiary than other topics. A more complete list of contents by folder is in the Detailed Description of the Records section, below.

The Applications and Endorsements subseries, no.3, includes applications, endorsements, bonds, remonstrances, and appointments to State positions. Included are positions in charitable and correctional institutions, the Eighteenth Judicial District, the Industrial Reformatory (now the Hutchinson Correctional Facility),the State mine inspector; penitentiary wardens and directors; members of the Board of Statehouse Commissioners, the Supreme Court, the Fish Commission, the Board of Railroad Commissioners, the chancellor and regents of State colleges and the State university (now the University of Kansas) (Lawrence), and the State veterinary surgeon. Positions in colleges and the State university are the largest group of applications.

The Subject Files, subseries 4, is the largest group. In it are topics including livestock matters; legislation; notaries public; applications for appointments not in the Appointments and Endorsements File (subseries 3); inquires; requests for admission; cities and towns; claims; Indian raids and relief; Price’s and Quantrill’s raids; soldiers’ pension and bounty claims; commissioners of deeds; county affairs; counties and county organization; crime and criminals, including the Bender family; Dodge City and the “Short Gang War”; an Indian scare in August 1883; land matters; extraditions and rewards; fairs; immigration; Indian affairs; invitations; school, railroad and other lands; federal and State military affairs; railroads; relief; invitations; the Parsons Library Association; proclamations; Prohibition matters; speeches; the Statue of Liberty; sugar manufacturing; a U.S. soldiers home in Atchison; the Washington Monument; women’s rights, S. N. Wood; and the United States government. Material on claims; counties; and criminal, land, livestock, and Prohibition matters comprise the largest topics.

There are three oversize folders included in the series: Box 2, folder 17 (072-02-10-01), contains Kansas State Historical Society records of receipts and disbursements from January 1881 to January 1883. Box 7, folder 7 (072-02-10-01), contains material on criminal matters and governor’s reward proclamations for criminal apprehension, 1883-1885. Box 10, folder 2 (072-02-10-01), contains governor’s proclamations pertaining to human safety, including a hoof and mouth outbreak, and dissemination of general information deemed necessary for public knowledge, 1883-1885.

Records of other offices of Kansas government - particularly the secretary of State, record group 622, and attorney general, record group 82 - will give additional information about State activities during this period. Papers of other prominent political figures of the time, most of which are held by the Kansas Historical Society, may also offer insights about Kansas politics and government during the Glick administration.

The Kansas Historical Society has a one - folder (“miscellaneous”) collection of Glick’s personal papers consisting of an undated autobiographical sketch and a Note from Glick to F. G. Adams, 1898 June. For additional information, please consult the manuscripts card catalog in the Library’s reference room; ATLAS, the on - line catalog; or ask the reference staff to assist you.

Document Types

Government correspondence-Kansas.
Public records-Kansas.

Occupations

Governors-Kansas-Archives.

Restrictions on Access

None

Restrictions on Use

Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). Most documents created by governmental entities, including the State of Kansas, are considered in the public domain, although copyright to documents found in public records that were written by individuals or organizations and sent to government agencies may be owned by the writers or their heirs.

Acquisition Information

Processing Information

Accruals

No additional records are expected.

Detailed Description of the Records

Series 03415. Correspondence Received, 1883- 1885. 5 ft. (10 boxes).

Primarily letters received by Governor Glick, however there are also proclamations and a few petitions, reports, copies of letters sent, and other types of documents. Some proclamations may have also been interfiled with other items received relating to the subjects of the proclamations. Copies of letters sent are described below in the Glick portion of the series Letter Press Books, 1865- 1904 (no. 03397).

Letters received relating to positions, recommendations, & vacancies; Governor Glick’s addresses; State contracts; the extension of State jurisdiction to former Indian reservations; the judiciary & judicial procedure; legislation; requests for information, publications, or action; politics; services & goods offered for sale; taxation; transportation; public lands; U.S. Dept. of Interior, U.S. Dept. of State, U.S. Dept. of Treasury, U.S. Dept. of War and interstate co-operation. Letters may have been filed here because there was not an appropriate place for them in the State Departments (no. 2) or Subject Files (no. 4) subseries, described below.

Arranged in alphabetical order by author.

Letters and petitions received and copies of telegrams sent by Governor Glick, May - June 1883, relating to Luke Short’s ouster from Dodge City. and his attempts to re-establish himself have been included in the microfilm “Dodge City ‘War’ of May, 1883,” roll MS 739.01, available for research, interlibrary loan, or purchase.

Letters from or relating to State offices: Some of the letters relate to personnel, vacancies, resignations, and appointments, but most pertain to the operation of individual State agencies. The letters request the Governor to take specific actions, ask his approval, send him information, ask him questions, tell of events, provide legal opinions, forward other letters and petitions, confirm or acknowledge gubernatorial actions, and request the Governor’s presence. Topics include organizing another Kansas cavalry regiment, supplies, boards of directors, inspections, State offices, judgeships, audits, the State treasury, federal taxation, State payments, prisoners, bonds, and fraud.

Contains letters requesting opinions on parole, Parole Board verdict or certificate, and a prisoner history. Interfiled with Pardon and Parole Files for the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory, 1927-1945 (series 03659) and Parole Certificates Issued by the Coffeyville City Court, 1932-1936 (series 03661), as part of Subseries I, 63 ft. (151 boxes), 1863-1919, arranged alphabetically. Women are only contained in Subseries I; after 1919 women’s files are arranged separately as series 06304, Pardon and Parole of Female Inmates.

The document from the Crawford administration, believed to be in the Governor's handwriting, shows the appointee's name, office, and date. The Glick volume contains appointment number, appointee name, office appointed to, date, and district / county.

Entries arranged by date.

The Glick volume contains a subject index by office and alphabetical index by appointee name.

Exact copies of texts of letters sent by Governors S. J. Crawford and James Madison Harvey through Willis Joshua Bailey; there are no letters for Nehemiah Green. Most of the letters sent respond to concerns expressed to the governor. Subjects are generally similar to those in letters received by governors, including State institutions, departments, & programs; appointments; events; counties; investigations; the cattle trade; land; claims; the military; State funds; immigration; Native American issues; laws & legislation; pardons; and other topics mirroring letters received by governors. Recipients included citizens of Kansas & other States, other elected officials, heads of State institutions & departments, the adjutant general, members of the Kansas congressional delegation, other governors, members of the Legislature, railroad officials, newspaper editors, military officers, local officials, and the president & vice president.

Lists the convicted, the court and county, the date convicted, whose murder they were found guilty of, and the date of the warrant and of the filing. Remarks are usually referenced to a later page. The format quickly switches out of list form and devotes pages to each condemned person in turn. While the same information is usually covered, the jury’s verdict and other related documents that may be found in Death Sentence Warrants, series 03781, are usually handwritten onto these pages. This volume may have served as the Governor’s record of receipt for the documents in the Death Sentence Warrants, series 03781.

Handwritten and typescript warrants that were sent to the Governor’s Office after the convicted person’s sentencing for the governor to approve when the date and time of execution had been set. Also included are related documents that were written by the sentencing judge, county sheriff or attorney, clerk of the District court, or jury foreman.

Arranged generally chronologically.

Glick administration: Feb. 1883 - [1884?]

Series 03814. REQUISITIONS ON GOVERNOR FROM GOVERNORS OF OTHER STATES FOR PERSONS ACCUSED OF CRIMES, 1873 - 1960. [2] v. + 1 bundle. 025-12-04-01

The bundle covers years 1886-1898 and does not have any type of arrangement. This bundle contains requisitions and supporting documents that were sent to the Governor's office from other States. Volumes cover the year 1873-1932 and have an alphabetical indexes in the front. Entries are arranged chronologically and list the case number, the date of request, fugitive name, the requesting State, name of agent, crime charged, and county suspect is believed to located in.

Census rolls for enumerations conducted 1873 1886. Entries contain number of householders, ages, and number of acres under cultivation. Some also contain gender, number of voters, number of schoolchildren and location.

Contains information furnished to the governor about each prisoner in the Kansas State Penitentiary (Lansing) (KSP) such as name, county, date of sentences, crime, term of sentence and remarks. Other records of prisoners for this period may be found in the records of the KSP, record group 525, and on an alphabetical, card Index to the Inmate Records at the Kansas State Penitentiary, 1861 1952, on Kansas State Historical Society microfilm rolls AR 7458 AR 7469.

Arranged alphabetically by the first letter of the prisoner’s surname, thereunder roughly chronologically by date of entry.

Handwritten copies of messages and proclamations that were probably used as rough drafts for the printed and signed copies made public. They do not contain exact dates for each, but the volumes do have date spans noted. They also contain an alphabetical index.

Applications to other States to extradite criminals for prosecution in Kansas. They show the State applied to, name, crime, and date issued; most also contain court papers or similar documents explaining the case. The application itself was an envelope into which all the related documents were placed. Collection is missing the years 1886-1892; years 1937-1953 have not been refoldered and remain in their original application envelopes. Subseries I: #65-A-1 to 594-A-62 (1874-1885); Subseries II: #1871-B-6 to 6300 (1893-1953).

Copies of declarations of pardon, which contain information about the crime committed, date of pardon, and the governor’s signature on a preprinted declaration form. The first subseries covers 1879 1933 and the second subseries covers 1933 - 1960. Also contained in this collection are citizenship pardon stubs, which cover 1876 - 1883. The stubs are arranged chronologically in three smaller volumes and do not contain an index or signatures.